FOR WHOM THE PHONE RINGS

By Joy Pincus

Published in Fizz Magazine, Winter 2004

  

On a Friday morning not very long ago, my husband and I took off from work to go shopping for a new house.  We drove with our agent to the first location, and what followed should have looked something like this:    

Disembarking from the car, the agent proceeded to show us the house and land, one feature at a time. As valued customers we were taken around the property and shown its various attractive features: porch over here, olive tree over there, and – look! A charming outdoor breakfast nook right down there.    

That wasn't what happened.  Here's what happened:

The moment we all got out of the car, the agent's cell phone began to ring, and while he spoke with another client, my husband and I were left to our own devices to wander haplessly through the yard, feeling rather like two passengers on an out-of-service subway car.

The house was unoccupied, empty and locked, which meant that we had to wait, and I alternated between shifting in discomfort from one foot to another, and examining the aforementioned olive tree from all its disappointingly few vantage points.  My husband smoked.  Eventually the agent, possibly sensing the growing hostility in the air, told the caller he'd get back to him and disconnected the call.

I was annoyed, angry and a few more adjectives that don't begin with a, and not just at the agent but at the whole trend towards rudeness in our society.  We are living in a culture whose rules and standards are constantly shifting, changing and pushing back the edge of the envelope on acceptable behavior, and one of the hallmarks of this trend is the cell-phone.

Aside from all the other many goods and evils they have loosed upon the world, these devices have given rise to a norm where one may now be physically with one person but mentally with someone else.  In essence, they have produced a state of mass schizophrenia, and if that sounds severe know that one dictionary describes the disorder as having at least some of the following elements: social isolation, disorganized speech and behavior, emotional blunting and intellectual deterioration.

Isolation:  Standing in a room full of people and choosing to ignore their existence, relating instead to someone not present. 

Disorganized behavior: Living life in a stop and start fashion, responding at any given moment to the ring of a bell, regardless of what activity you may be in the middle of or whom you may be with.

Emotional bluntness: Being completely oblivious to another's discomfort and needs. 

We carry our cell-phones everywhere; into the bathroom, the car, the bedroom.  They are with us every moment, often right next to our bodies, and by extension, we offer priority to those who call us over those within physical proximity.  That day at the house, I had a near-irrepressible urge to take out my own cell phone and dial the agent's number to see if having him on the phone would give me an edge that being within arm's distance didn't seem to offer.

The dictionary further describes schizophrenia as:  "a state characterized by the coexistence of contradictory or incompatible elements."

Such as… the bride and groom are declaring their vows to one another on this most special day of their lives, while from the back one can hear the murmurs and whispers of friends and family who see nothing wrong in carrying on a phone conversation with friends, babysitters, perhaps their stockbrokers.

Such as…a student in the middle of a classroom receives a phone call and remains in her chair, carrying on the conversation, either oblivious or uncaring of the rest of the class, not to mention the teacher.  Call finished, the person hangs up the phone and turns attention back as if nothing unseemly has happened. 

We are witness to a new form of madness. 

An ancient Sufi tale tells of a kingdom whose water supply has gone bad, rendering all who drink of it insane.  The King, warned in advance of the illness, has safeguarded his own water supply and remained fully witted, but forced to live and deal in a world now filled with raving lunatics.  Eventually, unable to deal with the loneliness and burden of sanity, he drinks from the contaminated pools, and the people rejoice that their King has suddenly regained his sanity.

With cell-phones, it may be a case now of drink from the contaminated waters or live in a self-imposed wilderness, behind the times and ridiculously square. Life grows faster and attention spans grow shorter, and indeed the day of the surgically implanted cell phone may not be far off.  Perhaps there will remain a selected few who will remember common codes of respect, and will – wait a minute....Okay, sorry, I've got to go – there's someone on the phone.